By Sinderella
The 2024 recruiting cycle for South Carolina Baseball is officially over. Mark Kingston is bringing in 24
total players in this recruiting cycle – 20 from the high school ranks and 4 from Junior College.
Now, you may be asking: “why this class is so big?” That can be answered by a couple of reasons: the 2024 South Carolina baseball team is led by a lot of juniors and seniors, and there are a lot of draft-risk players in the recruiting class. Overall, this class, depending on who comes to school, can be a class that brings a lot of success to South Carolina over the course of their careers.
This recruiting class ended up being a Top 10 class in the country and 7th in the SEC. It is headlined by the #1 player in the country, PJ Morlando, but where are the rest of the prospects ranked per Perfect Game rankings? There are seven more in the Top 500:
No. 1 OF PJ Morlando
No. 84 SS/RHP Dalton Wentz
No. 107 RHP/3B Carson Messina
No. 271 INF KJ Scobey
No. 285 RHP Maximus McClellan
No. 306 1B/LHP Beau Hollins
No. 358 C Gavin Braland
No. 437 RHP Henry Prindl
And, nearly every incoming player who is not on the above list is still ranked #500 - #1000. They are:
RHP Ryder Garino
RHP Riley Goodman
OF EJ Grant
RHP Cole Greer
RHP Brady Jones
INF Tyler June
RHP Gavin King
LHP Cade Pilgrim
RHP Peyton Rogers
RHP Zach Russell
OF Ethan Wagner
Only RHP/SS Cooper Parks is outside of the top 1000, and that’s because he doesn’t do a lot of camps,
but he is easily a top 1000 player in my opinion.
Here's how the list breaks down in high school commits by state:
South Carolina- 11
Tennessee- 3
Florida- 1
Virginia- 1
Ohio- 1
Georgia- 1
Nevada- 1
New Jersey- 1
I personally love the focus on in-state recruiting again. It has been a few years since we have seen this
level of commitment to grabbing players from the state of South Carolina. Historically, all of the best South Carolina teams have been filled with players from the state of South Carolina. The recruiting class isn’t just high school players, though. There are also the 4 JUCO players, all pitchers:
LHP Brandon Clarke (State College of Florida)
LHP Kemper Nix (Spartanburg Methodist)
LHP Jackson Soucie (Wabash Valley Community College)
RHP Brenden Sweeney (Eastern Oklahoma State College)
As you can tell, pitching is the primary area of focus for this class. Some guys I expect to be early
contributors other than the JUCO players are Maximus McClellan, Brady Jones, and Riley Goodman. If
Dalton Wentz comes in as a pitcher, then you can add him to this list.
As far as position players that I think will make an early impact, those guys are KJ Scobey, Beau Hollins, and if Wentz comes in as a position player, then you can add him to that group as well.
The question everyone is asking is who is getting drafted and who is making it to school? Well, at this
point, that is a very difficult question to answer, but two guys I feel pretty strongly about signing contracts and bypassing college ball are Morlando (obviously) and Carson Messina, brother of Gamecock catcher Cole Messina. Carson might make it to campus only if Cole returns for his senior season.
Dalton Wentz, KJ Scooby, Maximus McClellan, and Beau Hollins are all guys that are also draft risks as of 11/24/23. As always, there are going to be more developments as the draft draws closer, and at College Baseball Central, we will keep you updated every step of the way.
All Pictures Courtesy of @MorelandoPj and @CarsonMessina1 on X
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